$111M coastal resiliency project wrapped up on Staten Island

An innovative $111 million Living Breakwaters project on Staten Island has been completed.

According to Governor Kathy Hochul, the project is designed to improve coastal resilience by decreasing the impact of storm waves and erosion along the coast of Staten Island.

The 2,400 linear feet of breakwaters will mitigate risk to homes and businesses across the low-lying coastal community of Tottenville that experienced loss of life and property when powerful waves knocked homes off their foundations during Superstorm Sandy in 2012.

“New York is leading the nation in combating the climate crisis and building resilient communities,” Governor Hochul said. “As we have experienced several historic storms this summer, extreme weather is the new normal and it is vital that we adapt to our changing climate. Living Breakwaters exemplifies our long-term strategy to lessen the impact of storms, improve our shorelines and protect homes and businesses for generations to come.”

Living Breakwaters combines coastal resilience measures and habitat enhancement to create a network of nature-based infrastructure that is designed to reduce risk to the shoreline and improve the aquatic ecosystem of Raritan Bay.

The project consists of eight partially submerged structures made of armor stone and ecologically enhanced concrete units that will break storm waves, decrease erosion and help restore the beach along Conference House Park.

Extensive hydrodynamic modeling was used to design the breakwaters to reduce the strength of waves reaching buildings and roads near the coast to below three feet in height.

The breakwaters also slow sediment flowing along the shore to help reverse the impacts of decades of erosion, enabling the beach to build back and widen over time.

The project also included a sand replenishment from Manhattan Street to Loretto Street, an area especially prone to erosion.